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ad purposes; artifice; guile; skill or dexterity employed to effect purposes by deceit or shrewd devices. You have that crooked wisdom which is called craft. Hobbes. The chief priets and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. Mark xiv. 1.

Shrewishness. "My wife's cursedness." Chaucer.

Clever; sharp; shrewd; ingenious; cunning. [Colloq.]

earnestly; to ask, esp. in a peremptory manner; to question. I did demand what news from Shrewsbury. Shak.

A shrewd trick; an antic; a caper. To cut a dido, to play a trick; to cut a caper; -- perhaps so called from the trick of Dido, who having bought so much land as a hide would cover, is said to have cut it into thin strips long enough to inclose a spot for a citadel.

Characterized by tact and shrewdness; dexterous; artful; as, diplomatic management.

Acute; shrewd; sagacious; sharp-sighted. Macaulay.

Characterized by a quality somewhat severe, grave, or hard; hence, sharp; keen; shrewd; quaint; as, a dry tone or manner; dry wit. He was rather a dry, shrewd kind of body. W. Irving.

le elephant paper, paper measuring 26Paper. -- Elephant seal (Zoöl.), an African jumping shrew (Macroscelides typicus), having a long nose like a proboscis. -- Elephant's ear (Bot.), a name given to certain species of the genus Begonia, which have immense one-sided leaves. -- Elephant's foot (Bot.) (a) A South Afric…

ude. Exhibiting the seeming contradiction of susceptibility to enthusiasm and calculating shrewdness. Bancroft.

The earth. [Prov. Eng.] Wright. Erd shrew (Zoöl.), the common European shrew (Sorex vulgaris); the shrewmouse.

A shrewd or artful person. [Slang] Fielding. Will is an old file spite of his smooth face. Thackeray. Bastard file, Cross file, etc. See under Bastard, Cross, etc. -- Cross-cut file, a file having two sets of teeth crossing obliquely. -- File blank, a steel blank shaped and ground ready for cutting to form a file. -…

The state or quality of being foxy, or foxlike; craftiness; shrewdness.

Knowing; wise; shrewd. [Old Slang] I said you were a gnostic fellow. Sir W. Scott.

Capacity; shrewdness; common sense. [Colloq.] One does not have gumption till one has been properly cheated. Lord Lytton.

Having sound judgment; sagacious; shrewd. -- Hard"-head`ed*ness, n.

Witty; shrewd; adroit; keen; sagacious; as, an ingenious reply.

f hostility; a sudden or desultory incursion or invasion; raid; encroachment. The loss of Shrewsbury exposed all North Wales to the daily inroads of the enemy. Clarendon. With perpetual inroads to alarm, Though inaccessible, his fatal throne. Milton.

powers. Called also kangaroo mouse. -- Jumping mullet (Zoöl.), gray mullet. -- Jumping shrew (Zoöl.), any African insectivore of the genus Macroscelides. They are allied to the shrews, but have large hind legs adapted for jumping. -- Jumping spider (Zoöl.), spider of the genus Salticus and other related genera; one…

The state or quality of being knowing or intelligent; shrewdness; skillfulness.